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This chapter considers evaluation as essential for learning and for reflecting on whether actions to address the complex challenges pertaining to climate change are on track to producing the desired outcomes. The Paris Agreement of 2015 was an important milestone on the road towards a zero-carbon, resilient, prosperous and fair future. However, while the world has agreed on the need to tackle climate change for sustainable development, it is critical to provide evidence-based analysis of past experiences and ongoing innovations to shed light on how we might enhance the effectiveness and efficiency of actions at various levels. Thorough and credible evaluations help us identify what works, for whom, when and where and under what circumstances in order to mitigate climate change, achieve win-win situations for the society, the economy and the environment, reduce risk and increase resilience in the face of changing climate conditions. This chapter serves as an introduction to the book on Evaluating Climate Change Action for Sustainable Development that sets the scene on the current state of climate change evaluation and brings together experiences on evaluating climate change policy, mitigation and adaptation. Keywords Evaluation • Climate change • Global environment • Mitigation • AdaptationClimate change has emerged as one of the preeminent challenges facing humankind in the twenty first century. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change states

In many Least Developed Countries, the minimum level for basic services like energy access is not reached. In the cases of long-term investment in carbon intensive technologies, the expansion of basic services is likely to carry with it a significant increase in GHG emissions. This chapter discuss the importance of accounting for these avoided emissions through the case study of the Passive Solar Houses (PSH) in Afghanistan. In Kabul winters are cold and 48 % of households cannot afford enough fuel to heat their house. To reduce fuels expenses and improve living conditions, the NGO GERES is supporting local artisans to disseminate a PSH model made of a veranda built on the south-facing part of the house to conserve the sun energy captured and stored in the walls. During the 2013-2014 winter, the fuel consumption and indoor temperature of PSH and control houses were monitored to assess the impact of the technology. The results show an energy saving of 23 % resulting in annual greenhouse gases emission reduction of 0.37 tCO 2 e/year as well as an average indoor temperature increase of 1.43 C to reach 18.22 C. Then, a regression model was developed to estimate the emissions that would have occurred if the control group had reached the same indoor temperature than the PSH and, in a second scenario, the minimum indoor temperature of 18 C recommended by the WHO. For both scenario, the avoided emission represent approximately half of the total climate change mitiga-tion impact with 0.40 tCO 2 e/year and 0.34 tCO 2 e/year respectively.

In 2014, the second conference on evaluating climate change and development offered the opportunity to take stock of evaluative evidence of the challenges, failures and success of climate change action. In 2011 one of the authors raised the possibility of a micro-macro paradox of climate change action (van den Berg, Evaluation 17:405, 2011): in his view evaluations of climate change action provided evidence that climate action works and achieves direct impact -yet climate change seems unstoppable. Several major, comprehensive evaluations were presented at the 2014 conference and provided an overview of actions taken and their successes and failures, as well as obstacles on the way to global impact. This chapter presents an overview of issues, evidence and the way forward for evaluators tackling climate action and sustainable development. The evidence provides support for the micro-macro paradox of 2011 and indicates that the global community has the technology and knowledge on how to stop climate change. However, actions that promote climate change still outweigh remedial climate action with at least a factor of 100. Thus current successes of programs and projects will not impact global trends, unless at the same time the non-sustainable subsidies and actions are stopped.

International discussion on effectiveness of aid emphasizes results, results, results and results. The Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) promise results in 2015. Many bilateral and multilateral donors are moving in the direction of management for results or by results, or have done so in the past few years. One element that contributed to this shift was the general feeling that aid had not sufficiently demonstrated its results. In many public debates on aid -for example, in the Netherlands -this feeling was particularly strong in terms of demonstrating impact. Any reference to short-term results or results at the level of activities is pushed aside, because critics argue that there is no impact at the level of societal or state development. In these debates, evaluations are mentioned only rarely. One reason may be that impact assessments, which take a critical look at results at the society level five or more years after a project or activity has ended, are not easy to undertake, and consequently are not widely undertaken nor widely read. Most evaluations focus on short-term or intermediary results of the projects, programmes or policy to be evaluated. Furthermore, these evaluations tend to focus on the effectiveness and efficiency with which results are being achieved, rather than the results themselves.This contribution explores some of the reasons why evaluations have not contributed more to the debate about the results and impact of aid. The piece proposes some changes in the actual practice of development evaluation, namely a shift in emphasis from effectiveness and impact to results evaluation. This repositioning of evaluation will allow for an exploration of the possibilities for increasing the scope of evaluations into results that matter for the current debate on development. Furthermore, the piece argues that the current fashion of looking Evaluation

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